Chris Kavan's Movie Review of Last House on the Left (1972)

Carnage, Revenge to the Depths of Hell
Chris Kavan - wrote on 03/12/09

A low-budget cult horror classic, Last House on the Left takes the story from The Virgin Spring, removes any religious context, and turns it into an ultra-violent murder/revenge story.

Being the horror fan I am, I was waiting for a better version of Last House before I watched it. Although I still think the new uncut version is probably missing some of the more graphic scenes, it got the point across.

While Virgin Spring explores the nature of God and has you feeling sympathy even for the bad guys at some point, Last House offers no redemption. The evil here is not a trio of herdsman, but escaped convicts (one a murder of nuns and a priest, the other a pedophile and peeping tom) along with a drug addict and bisexual wild-woman girlfriend.

Our victims are not an innocent Christian and pagan worshipper, but a sexualized 17 year old and her bad influence of a friend. They’re not delivering candles to a church, but are going to see a local rock band. Instead of a nice picnic lunch, they want to score some drugs – which gets them into trouble.

The 70s-ploitation is in full effect – lots of blood, humiliation, degradation, violence, nudity, sex – all in your face and taking no prisoners. The actual rape scene is eerily similar (though far more graphic) than the one in Virgin Spring.

The story is the same (with the addition of a baddie female and two inept cops): good girl goes out, doesn’t come home, parents worry, take in some strangers, find out strangers killed their girl, exact revenge. Of course, their revenge happens to involve a chainsaw.

However, there is no remorse here. Not by the parents, certainly not by the criminals - it’s all bloodlust and carnage. Which begs the questions – is there any redeeming quality to this film? Besides pushing the envelope and causing censors to explode, not really. It was a stepping stone for Wes Craven, and I can see why it merits a cult status, but it really is violence for the sake of violence.